Redknapp was born in Poplar, London,[8] the only child of Henry Joseph William Redknapp (1922–1996) and Violet May Brown (1924–2001).[9]

At the age of 11, while playing for East London Schools football he was spotted by Dickie Walker, a Tottenham Hotspur scout. From there Harry grew up in the Tottenham youth ranks playing at Cheshunt, meeting the likes of Bill Nicholson, Dave Mackay and Danny Blanchflower. At the age of 15 Redknapp moved to West Ham and played alongside Bobby Moore.[10] In a 2008 interview he stated as part of a tribute to Tom Finney: "I was a big Arsenal fan as a kid and I remember seeing him play against Tommy Docherty one night".[11]

After being appointed Tottenham manager later that year he stressed his Tottenham connections as well, stating:

"I am a big follower of the history of the game and Tottenham have been a great club over the years. I followed Tottenham, I trained there as an 11-year-old, 12-year-old so I know the history of the club. It is a big, big club."[12]

During his playing career Redknapp played as a midfielder, he began his career with Tottenham Hotspur playing for the youth team until he was 15 years old when he moved to West Ham United. Redknapp first broke into the first team at West Ham in the 1965–66 seasons, making seven appearances and scoring one goal. He made his debut for West Ham in a 1–1 draw at home to Sunderland on 23 August 1965.[13] His first goal came in a 4–1 away win over Tottenham Hotspur on 8 April 1966.[13]

Redknapp made his first start of the 1966–67 season, and scored his second goal for the club, on 3 December 1966 in a 3–0 win over West Bromwich Albion.[13] Redknapp made 12 League appearances scoring once during his second season.[13] During the 1967–68 season Redknapp made 28 League appearances scoring on two occasions, the first in a 4–2 home win over Burnley on 21 August 1967 and the second in a 5–1 away win over Sunderland on 6 September 1967.[13]

During the 1968–69 season Redknapp made 42 appearances scoring three times with 36 appearances coming in the league with two goals, he made three FA Cup appearances with a further three in the League Cup scoring once. His first league goal of the season came in a 4–0 win over West Bromwich Albion on 31 August 1968 and then in the next game a league cup tie against Bolton Wanderers which West Ham won 4–0. Redknapp received a red card in a 2–0 away defeat at Leeds United on 12 October 1968.[13] He had been booked for fouling Billy Bremner and was dismissed by the referee for dissent.[14] His third goal of the season came in a 4–3 win over Queens Park Rangers on 2 November 1968.[13]

Redknapp made his first appearance of the 1969–70 season on 9 August 1969 in a 1–0 home win over Newcastle United, his first goal of the season came in a 3–0 home win over Sheffield Wednesday on 2 September 1969. Redknapp made 26 appearances scoring once in all competitions with 23 of them coming in the league.[13]

During the 1970–71 season Redknapp made 21 league appearances with one more coming in the League Cup.[13] He then made a further 35 appearances during the 1971–72 season with 22 of them coming in the league, this would turn out to be his last season at the club before he moved to Bournemouth for the 1972–73 season after making a total of 175 appearances in league and cup for West Ham scoring eight times over seven season with the club.[13]

Redknapp joined Division 3 Bournemouth in 1972 from West Ham United. Redknapp spent four seasons with the south coast side between 1972 and 1976.

In the 1972–73 season Redknapp made 37 appearances with 34 of them coming in the league scoring once in the league and Bournemouth finished seventh in the league. He made a further 46 appearances scoring five times during the 1973–74 season with 39 appearances in the league.

Redknapp made 19 (all league) appearances during the 1974–75 season as Bournemouth were relegated to the Fourth Division and he only managed nine appearances for the following 1975–76 season. At the end of the 1975–76 season Redknapp moved to then Fourth Division side Brentford where he made one appearance during the 1976–77 season.

In 1976 Redknapp joined North American Soccer League side Seattle Sounders as a player coach. He made 15 appearances during the 1976 season as they reached the playoffs after finishing 2nd in the Pacific Conference, Western Division before losing to Minnesota Kicks in the Division Championship.[15] Before returning to Seattle, he appeared briefly for AP Leamington in the Southern League Premier Division[16] He then made five appearances during the 1977 season as they finished third in the Pacific Conference, Western Division before losing out in Soccer Bowl '77 to Pelé's New York Cosmos 2–1.

Redknapp went on to make three appearances in the 1978 season and just the one in the 1979 season, before joining up with old team mate and 1966 World Cup winning captain Bobby Moore.

Redknapp began his management career with a spell as player-assistant manager of North American Soccer League side Seattle Sounders from 1976 to 1979. During his time with Seattle, Redknapp made 24 appearances, helping the side to second place in the Pacific Conference, Western Division in his first season as player coach and then to 3rd place in the Pacific Conference, Western Division for the 1977 season, taking them to the final of the Soccer Bowl before losing to Pelé's New York Cosmos.

During the 1978 season Redknapp helped Seattle to a third-place finish in the National Conference, Western Division before they lost in the first round of the playoffs, again to New York Cosmos. In his final year in Seattle he helped them to another third-place finish in the National Conference, Western Division but this time they failed to qualify for the playoffs.

At the beginning of the 1982–83 season Redknapp took up his first major coaching role as assistant manager to David Webb at Bournemouth, six years after leaving the club as a player. Redknapp applied for the manager's job when Webb moved to Torquay United part way through that season, but was overlooked in favour of Don Megson. Megson was sacked in late 1983 as Bournemouth were in the Third Division relegation places, and Redknapp was hired as his replacement in October 1983.[18]

In his first season at the helm, Redknapp helped Bournemouth avoid relegation to the Fourth Division. Bournemouth also caused a shock in the FA Cup when they beat holders Manchester United 2–0 in the third round.[19] Bournemouth won the Third Division title in 1987 with 97 points; this broke the club's record for the most points scored in a season.[20]

After two years at this level, Bournemouth were relegated at the end of their third season. Bournemouth were in 13th position on 3 March, but injuries, which depleted the squad, combined with a catastrophic loss of form, meant that they won only one more game for the rest of that season, and were relegated on 5 May after a 1–0 defeat at Dean Court against Leeds United.[21]

In June 1990, while in Italy to watch the World Cup, Redknapp was involved in a road accident along with Michael Sinclair, the chairman of York City, Fred Whitehouse, the chairman of Aston Villa and Bournemouth's managing director Brian Tiler. Travelling through Latina, south of Rome, at night, their chauffeur-driven minibus was in a head-on collision with a car containing three Italian soldiers. The minibus was flipped onto its roof and skidded fifty yards along the road; Tiler was killed, as were the three occupants of the other vehicle.[22] Redknapp was doused in petrol and pulled clear of the accident by Sinclair. Redknapp suffered a fractured skull, a broken nose, cracked ribs and a gash in his left leg. Ambulance services arriving at the scene believed him dead and placed a blanket over his head. Unconscious for two days Redknapp was flown home two weeks later in a special air ambulance paid for by AFC Bournemouth.[23] Though he made a full recovery (apart from losing his sense of smell and gaining a facial tic), he eventually quit Bournemouth at the end of the 1991–92 season.[24]

For the next season he was appointed assistant manager to Billy Bonds at West Ham United, another of his former clubs. However, in August 1994, the board decided to turn control of the team over to Redknapp and move Bonds into an administrative role. In the end, Bonds resigned completely from the club, leaving Redknapp in sole charge.

Just months before being promoted to the manager's seat at Upton Park, he was linked with the managerial vacancy at Southampton after the departure of previous manager Ian Branfoot, but the job went to Alan Ball instead.[25]

Nevertheless, West Ham finished eighth in 1998, and took fifth in 1999, which saw them qualify for the Intertoto Cup, in what was their second-best ever season in the top division. In the 1999–2000 season West Ham won the Intertoto Cup and qualified for the UEFA Cup but failed to match their performances in the league, which could be put down to the extra games played. Redknapp left West Ham on 9 May 2001, one game before the end of the 2000–01 season. For some time it was unconfirmed whether he resigned or was sacked but Redknapp shed new light on the true circumstances in October 2007:

"The chairman Terry Brown had offered me a new four-year contract. What I did was talk to a fanzine, made some comments, and sometimes I should be a bit more careful. I sat down with these guys from the fanzine and they started asking me questions and I spoke to them in the way I’d talk to someone in a pub. I said a few things I shouldn’t have said. He read it and got very upset. I walked into his office expecting to sign the contract and walked out without a job!"

However, after the club's poor form he replaced manager Graham Rix in March 2002. Redknapp managed the club to the Division One title in the 2002–03 season, gaining promotion to the Premier League, replacing his former club West Ham.

Redknapp kept Portsmouth in the Premier League in the 2003–04 season, but had a dispute with Portsmouth's owner Milan Mandarić over his assistant Jim Smith. Redknapp had another disagreement with Mandaric over the appointment of Velimir Zajec as Director of Football and resigned as Portsmouth's manager in November 2004.[30]

A few weeks after his departure at Portsmouth, Redknapp became manager of Southampton, a move which infuriated Portsmouth's supporters as the two clubs are fierce local rivals. Some fans even bore T-shirts which referred to Redknapp as "Scummer" and "Judas" and called for him to "Rot in Hell".[31]

Redknapp was tasked with keeping Southampton in the Premier League – a similar task to the one Redknapp was facing with Portsmouth, and a familiar one at the club over the previous 15 years, which he would have faced had he accepted the offer to take over a decade earlier – but ultimately was unable to achieve this, ending Southampton's 27-year spell in the top flight. Redknapp remained in charge for the 2005–06 Championship season but was unable to establish consistency needed to make Southampton promotion contenders. Redknapp was also unhappy with chairman Rupert Lowe's appointment of Sir Clive Woodward to the club's coaching staff.[32] After being repeatedly linked with a return to Portsmouth after they sacked Alain Perrin, Redknapp resigned as Southampton's manager in early December 2005. Lowe quoted Redknapp as referring to Portsmouth as his "spiritual home".[33]

Redknapp returned to Portsmouth on 7 December 2005 with the club threatened by relegation to the Championship, although not in the relegation zone. At first it looked like Redknapp would be heading for a second successive relegation, but a fine run of form at the end of the season, aided by the takeover of Portsmouth by Alexandre Gaydamak (which provided Redknapp with more money), ensured Portsmouth's survival. In the following season, Redknapp led Portsmouth to a ninth-placed finish which was the club's highest league finish since the 1950s. In October 2007, Redknapp signed a new contract at Portsmouth lasting until 2011.[34]

In January 2008 it emerged through the media that Redknapp was offered the vacant manager's job at Newcastle United following the sacking of Sam Allardyce. Redknapp had apparently declined the job, stating "I have a job to do to take this club forward and to walk away would not have been the right thing to do."[35] It was later stated by Newcastle chairman Christopher Mort that Redknapp "was interviewed for the job but he was only one of a number of people we were speaking to at that time", and at the time of Redknapp's interview the club had already been in secret talks with the eventual appointee, Kevin Keegan, for a week.[36]

Redknapp returned to Portsmouth to receive the Freedom of the City in a ceremony on 28 October 2008. As this event took place two days after his departure for Tottenham, he received a mixed reception from the Portsmouth fans, despite having led the club to a long-awaited trophy in the 2008 FA Cup.[38]

In October 2008, following the sacking of Juande Ramos by Tottenham Hotspur, the club announced that Redknapp had agreed to take over as the new manager at Spurs.[39] Tottenham paid £5 million in compensation to Portsmouth for letting Redknapp go.[40] Spurs had secured only two points from the first eight games of the season prior to Redknapp's arrival and lay bottom of the league, but in his first two weeks in charge he took the club out of the relegation zone, winning ten out of the twelve points available with wins against Bolton Wanderers, Liverpool and Manchester City and a remarkable 4–4 draw against North London rivalsArsenal.

In January 2009, Redknapp signed five new players in order to add quality and much-needed depth to his squad. He brought back Jermain Defoe from his old club Portsmouth for £15.75 million and Honduran midfielder Wilson Palacios from Wigan Athletic for £12 million. Long-serving Chelsea keeper Carlo Cudicini also joined on a free transfer, former Spurs player Pascal Chimbonda returned to White Hart Lane from Sunderland for a fee in the region of £3 million and Robbie Keane, who like Chimbonda and Defoe had only left Spurs within the last year, re-joined after an unsuccessful spell at Liverpool for an initial fee of £12 million.

In the second half of the season, Spurs gradually moved up the league table after a significant improvement in form. In March 2009, Redknapp led Spurs to the League Cup final, which they lost on penalties to Manchester United. Spurs eventually finished in eighth position with 51 points, narrowly missing out on a Europa League place.

In 2009–10, his first full campaign with the club, Redknapp guided Spurs to their most successful Premier League season to date. Beginning with four consecutive wins,[46] Spurs went on to finish in fourth place with 70 points, thus gaining the chance to qualify for the Champions League by means of a play-off. As a result of his efforts he won the Premier League Manager of the Year award, only the second manager to do so in a season when his side did not win the title.[47]

On 13 July 2010, it was confirmed that Spurs had extended Redknapp's contract until the end of the 2013 season.[48]

On 25 August 2010, Spurs confirmed their position in the Champions League group stages by overturning a first-leg deficit to defeat Swiss team Young Boys at White Hart Lane in the Champions Leagueplay-off.[49] After a surprising run to the quarter-finals, they were knocked out in April 2011, after a 5–0 aggregate defeat to Real Madrid.[50] Spurs ended the 2010–11 Premier League in fifth position with 62 points. Although not enough to secure a second year of Champions League football, this finish instead meant that Redknapp's Spurs qualified for the Europa League.

In the 2011–12 season, Redknapp signed 40-year-old goalkeeper Brad Friedel, after his contract expired with Aston Villa. He also made a season-long loan move for Manchester City striker, Emmanuel Adebayor. On transfer deadline day, he signed English midfielder Scott Parker for an undisclosed fee from West Ham United.[51][52] Redknapp then went on to win the Manager of the Month award for September and November.[53][54]

Despite leading Tottenham to their second fourth-placed finish in three years and missing out on Champions League qualification only due to Chelsea winning the competition, Redknapp was sacked by Tottenham on 13 June 2012,[55] after reportedly failing to agree terms on a new contract.[56]

On 24 November 2012, Redknapp, who had been working at former club Bournemouth in an advisory role,[57] was appointed as the manager of Queens Park Rangers,[58] taking over from Mark Hughes whose contract was terminated the previous day.[59] QPR were bottom with only 4 points from 12 games.[60] His first match in charge of QPR came on 27 November 2012, a 0–0 draw away to Sunderland.[61] Redknapp earned his first win as QPR manager, and the club's first Premier League victory of the 2012–13 season, on 15 December 2012, defeating Fulham 2–1 at Loftus Road.[62]

On 2 January 2013, Redknapp led QPR to a 1–0 victory away from home against reigning European champions Chelsea. This was QPR's first away win in the Premier League since November 2011 and their first top flight victory at Stamford Bridge since March 1979.[63] His first match against Tottenham since being sacked by the North London club came on 12 January 2013, with Redknapp leading QPR to a 0–0 draw at Loftus Road.[64]

On 28 April 2013, after a 0–0 draw against fellow relegation rivals Reading, and with three games of the season to play, QPR were relegated from the Premier League to the Championship after two seasons in the top flight.[65] After a single season in the Championship, Redknapp managed QPR to a 1–0 victory in the 2014 Football League Championship play-off Final against Derby County on 24 May 2014 at Wembley returning the club to the Premier League.[66][67] On 3 February 2015, Redknapp resigned as manager of QPR. With an imminent knee operation, Redknapp claimed that he could not give 100% to the job and that it would be better for someone else to take over as manager. Les Ferdinand and Chris Ramsey were placed in temporary charge.[68][69] In April 2015, Redknapp expanded on his reasons for leaving QPR revealing that he had also left the club because he "no longer knew who was on my side".[70] At his time of departure QPR were second from bottom in the Premier League with 19 points from 23 games and a record zero points from away games.[71]

On 19 September 2006, Redknapp was shown on camera by BBC Panorama taking part in what appeared to be an interest in approaching a player illegally. Redknapp denied that his conversation about then-Blackburn Rovers player Andy Todd with the football agent Peter Harrison amounted to "tapping up" or illegally approaching the player. Redknapp referred to Todd as a "tough bastard" during the conversation and suggested that he would be interested in signing the player on a full-time basis if he was available. Redknapp told the BBC that he has never taken a bung and had given Kevin Bond no reason to think otherwise and that he considers himself to be "One million percent innocent".[77]

In the final report of the Stevens inquiry published in June 2007, the only criticism of Redknapp concerned his ownership of a racehorse named "Double Fantasy" thought to have been given to him by the agent Willie McKay, which has aroused some suspicion. Redknapp told the inquiry that it was possible that he did own the horse but insisted that he had not made any money out of it because the horse was a failure and never won a race.[78]

On 28 November 2007, Redknapp, along with Portsmouth's managing director Peter Storrie, former Portsmouth chairman Milan Mandarić, agent Willie McKay and footballer Amdy Faye had been arrested by City of London Police on suspicion of conspiracy to defraud and false accounting.[79] Redknapp was later released without charge, and announced his intention to take the police to court over his arrest,[80] considering it as the reason for the failure of the FA to consider him for manager of England after the sacking of Steve McClaren.[81] The High Court ruled in May 2008 that the raid by City of London Police officers, on Redknapp's home in Poole, was illegal and quashed the search warrants, calling their actions "wholly unacceptable"[82] and ordering them to pay GB£1,000 damages to Redknapp as well as part of his legal costs.[83]

Following further investigation by HM Revenue & Customs as part of the corruption enquiry,[84] in January 2010, Redknapp was charged with two counts of cheating the public revenue, along with Milan Mandarić.[85] The charge related to a £189,000 payment from Mandarić to Redknapp via a bank account in Monaco. The trial began at Southwark Crown Court on 23 January 2012.[86] He was found not guilty on both counts on 8 February.[87]

Redknapp's acquittal came just hours before the resignation of England coach Fabio Capello.[88][89] Two days later, he refused to rule himself out of the running for the job, but said that it would be very difficult to combine the role with his current position as Tottenham manager.[90] A few weeks later the FA appointed Roy Hodgson as manager.[91]

Redknapp and his wife Sandra have two sons Jamie, a football pundit, and Mark, a model. Jamie made his professional debut under his father at AFC Bournemouth in 1990 before moving on to Liverpool and later Tottenham Hotspur and finally Southampton before retiring in 2005. Harry's grandson via his son Mark, also called Harry Redknapp signed for Bournemouth during May 2014[92] His nephew is former England midfielder Frank Lampard, Jr. whose parents are Sandra's late twin sister, Patricia, and Harry's former teammate and managerial assistant Frank Lampard, Sr.[93]

Redknapp and his wife are the fundraising presidents for the Southampton-based charity Leukaemia Busters, a role that they took over in 2004 previously held by former cricketer David Gower and his wife, Thorunn.[94]

Redknapp and his wife also own a property development company, Pierfront Developments. In August 2011, it was announced that a housing development their company is building in Southsea, Hampshire, will go ahead without affordable housing. The £600,000 they offered to the council to build affordable homes elsewhere, was accepted by the council. Opponents of the scheme estimated that this will only be enough to build eight homes, instead of the 28 that council policy says they should be building in this development.[95]